


rising on up and then tumbling down well it's part of the process

by tempestaurora



Series: hydra's not a home [12]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Insomnia, Peter Says Shit, Whump, Whumptober, rated teen for languge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 20:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16182902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: He needed to sleep but lately he’d been forgetting what that was like.Lately, he’d been spending his nights pacing his room, trying to stop the images of a mangled body from slipping into his mind.He'd see the guns, see himself, see blood smeared across his knuckles.He forced those images from his mind and they were only replaced with his Mom. With Pepper, on her knees as the compound crumbled around them.WHUMPTOBER DAY THREE: INSOMNIA





	rising on up and then tumbling down well it's part of the process

**Author's Note:**

> WHUMPTOBER DAY THREE: INSOMNIA
> 
> i am not taking part in whumptober! probably! i'm doing the ones i like, lmao. i just got inspired and it's ten minutes until midnight on day three, so here it is. i wrote it in half an hour. it's no masterpiece. it's very short. but it's a cute lil thing that i just wanted to share, so here you go!
> 
> i'll be real, i'm not even entirely sure what 'whump' is
> 
> bonus: i had to write this while the house next door threw an aggressively loud party. i can't think when there's music so this was difficult ok
> 
> the title is from "can't sleep" by vanic x k.flay

It was some time after the mess that it happened. The incident. The accident. Kurt Connors falling to his death and Peter falling, just like him, into a slump he couldn’t control. The anniversary of his disappearance was coming up, too, and despite his presence in his parents’ lives, Peter watched them slow, stop, breathing deep breaths as they tried to forget ten years of disappearance; of uncertainty and heartache.

Eventually, it was all too much.

Peter waited until the dead of night before climbing out of his bedroom window and crawling up the wall to the roof. The nondescript house on the border of Manhattan had three floors; the ground floor being the lab, the first the living area and the second the bedrooms. Three floors wasn’t nearly high enough for Peter to feel okay.

He missed the heights of skyscrapers, but maybe someone would survive the fall from his house. They wouldn’t from the rooftop Kurt Connors fell from. That had been a sickening crunch, the smacking of bones against cement, limbs snapping, blood pooling. The thought had vomit rising in Peter’s throat and he forced it back down again.

He needed to sleep but lately he’d been forgetting what that was like.

Lately, he’d been spending his nights pacing his room, trying to stop the images of a mangled body from slipping into his mind. Sometimes, the images would change. Sometimes, he’d see the men in black with guns – images he’d concocted from his experiences because no matter _what_ he remembered, it was never of _before_. Never of _home._

So he’d see the guns, see himself, see blood smeared across his knuckles.

He’d see death; the people he’d killed, the running tally he’d been told to drop when he hit seven and had obeyed. Now he wished he’d kept going; he wished he knew the exact number and how many times he was supposed to beg for forgiveness, because being good wasn’t settling into his bones next to his kill count. It was struggling and shifting and Peter still fought with feeling like a good person because a good person would never have killed like he did.

He forced those images from his mind and they were only replaced with his Mom. With Pepper, on her knees as the compound crumbled around them. Blood started seeping into his t-shirt, his muscles straining. _Atlas, holding the world._ Peter didn’t want the sky to rest on his shoulders, so he dropped it each and every time.

He couldn’t be Spiderman. He couldn’t be Peter Parker. He couldn’t be a Stark because a Stark had responsibility and at one AM on a school night he couldn’t fathom the concept.

“Peter?”

He let out a breath, and slipped down to the edge of the roof, swinging his legs over the side. Looking down, his father was leaning out Peter’s bedroom window, looking up at him.

“Hey,” Peter said.

“Would you mind not sitting on the roof?” Tony asked, his voice forcibly light. Peter hummed. “Can’t sleep again?”

“You know about that?”

“The watch,” Tony replied. “It monitors that stuff.”

“And you keep an eye on it?”

Tony quirked and eyebrow. “Of course I do. What’s keeping you up?”

Peter blew out a breath. He couldn’t see the stars thanks to all the light pollution of New York, but he didn’t mind. A clear, starless sky felt calmer; less like millions of balls of gas were exploding at this second. Just a peaceful expanse instead.

“Memories.”

“Bad ones.” It wasn’t a question.

Peter nodded. “I can’t stop seeing it all. I’m fine during the day and then I get into bed and suddenly it’s all I can think about.” Tony didn’t say anything for a few seconds so Peter continued. “I know I make light of the shit I’ve done, but it’s _bad_ , Dad. It’s bad. I’ve done bad things and I’m not in trouble for them – no one has even slapped my wrist over this stuff. And then Connors-”

“Hey, you’re not to blame for Connors,” Tony interrupted. “You tried to save him.”

“And I failed.”

“We all fail sometimes, Pete. It’s how life works. Hell, I’ve failed before, too.”

“Oh, yeah? Like when? When has the almighty Iron Man possibly failed in his life?” Peter flopped back onto the roof, staring up at the night sky, his feet dangling over the edge.

Below him, Tony rested against the window sill. “I didn’t save Pepper.”

Peter frowned. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean there was this terrorist called the Mandarin. He was really a guy called Aldrich Killian, and he stole Pepper. Literally. He took her, took the President, and Rhodey and I tried to save the day.”

“Did you?”

“Eh. Rhodey did. He got the President out of there. But me… I was supposed to get Pepper. But I failed. I didn’t catch her and she fell to her death.”

_“What?”_

“Yeah. I didn’t catch her. I failed her and since that day I’ve been watching people fall. Rhodey fell during that Walmart parking lot fight with the other Avengers, and you-”

“What about me?”

“You leap off skyscrapers, kid. You fall and you have to catch yourself every time. Just thinking about that kind of shit gives me a heart attack.”

For a moment, they fell quiet and Peter considered Tony’s words. He’d failed, once, and he was reminded of his failure again and again. Peter sat up.

“How is that supposed to be inspirational?” he asked.

“What?”

“You said you failed, but how did you fix it? How am I supposed to fix my failures?”

Tony blew out a breath. “Do better next time.”

“Next time.”

“Yeah. Next time. I’ve added manual de-fibs into Rhodey’s armour. I’ve connected an Iron Man suit to Pepper, so she can call one if she needs it. I put a parachute into your suit.”

“Into my what?” Peter looked over the edge of the roof, finding Tony looking out across the street.

“Into your nothing if you don’t come down from the roof.”

Peter cracked a smile and crawled down the wall without hesitation. When he reached his bedroom window, Tony reached out a hand to pull him through.

“Hey, you said Pepper died,” Peter said, back in his bedroom. He shut the window and frowned.

“Yeah. I mean, maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. She fell into the fire, kid. But she’d been injected with something called Extremis – it kind of gave her superpowers. She survived the fall, got back up and kicked Killian’s ass herself. Pepper saved the day.”

Peter vaguely recalled hearing about this event before; about Pepper killing Aldrich Killian – but it felt different, hearing Tony say it. He nodded.

“I’m glad she’s alive.”

“Me, too, kid.”

Tony squeezed his shoulder before turning to the door. Peter spoke before he had a chance to stop himself.

“I still can’t sleep,” he said. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

Tony glanced back. “Well, future us can figure something out,” he said, “but tonight us- when you were little, there were two ways to get you to sleep: to drive you around the city for _hours_ or for you to sleep in our bed.”

Peter frowned. “Which one are you offering?”

Tony shrugged, heading for the door. “I can’t be bothered to drive, kid.”

When Peter fell asleep, closer to two than one AM, he fell asleep between his parents, wrapped in their arms. He couldn’t remember sleeping in their bed before, and maybe he was too old for it now, but he was warm and safe and for the time being, his thoughts slowed to a crawl.

Peter closed his eyes and, finally, he slept.

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING!!!
> 
> comments make me so happy its unreal. i die every time. die of joy.  
> you can bookmark or subscribe to the series to know when i post! it's seeming like there will probably be less than five fics now until the end of the series so look out for that!
> 
> THANK YOU!


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